***
A few minutes after the alien machines sped away from the liquor store Sheriff Bemis pulled his patrol car up in front of Wiley’s pickup truck. He spotted Wiley sitting on his tailgate inside the liquor store, his shoulders slumping and his head hanging down.
Wiley didn’t move as they got out and approached him. “Go ahead,” Wiley said without looking around, “arrest me, Sheriff. I’ll be safer on the inside, anyhow.”
“You okay, Wiley?” Deputy Horton asked through the shattered hole in the big window.
Wiley turned and looked at them plaintively. Then he pointed to the ground at their feet. “Ate my dogs,” he moaned.
Bemis and Horton jumped back, startled. In front of them on the pavement were two dogs, or what was left of them: skulls, thighbones, rib cages and pieces of hide, but not a scrap of meat.
Sheriff Bemis took off his trooper hat and wiped the Louisiana humidity from his brow. “I’ll be doggoned,” he said. “Looks like those critters just stopped by for supper.”
Dinosaur Wars: Earthfall Page 36
